Motivations to eat: Scale development and validation

Objective: To validate a measure of psychological motivations to eat based on a four-category model of motivations for alcohol use (Cooper, 1994). Motivations specified by this model are: to cope with negative affect, to be social, to comply with others’ expectations, and to enhance pleasure.Method: In Study 1, 40 respondents were queried in an open-ended format about their reasons for eating; responses were content-coded to determine if they fit into the four theorized categories. In Study 2, an item pool was generated based on responses from Study 1, and random halves of a sample of 812 college students were used to test and then validate the hypothesized factor structure.Results: As expected, the final inventory yielded the four theorized categories. The factor structure was generally invariant across gender, and the resulting Motivations to Eat subscales uniquely predicted restrictive eating, bingeing, and purging.Discussion: Prior eating research has focused mainly on coping and compliance motivations. The present study identified four distinct motivations to eat that potentially are important for understanding healthy and disordered eating.